The speech, which aired on 10 television networks, was Obama's seventh prime-time appearance this year. His audience Tuesday was 27% larger than his last prime-time appearance, when he addressed a joint session of Congress on Sept. 9.

A ratings breakdown for the major networks isn't in yet.

Nielsen says it will soon roll online viewership statistics into its reports, which is good because that's where I watched the speech last night.

Immediately after the address, Fox News' viewership reached as much as 5.22 million for its analysis, which, as you can imagine, tore Obama's plan to shreds.